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Thoughts on Confronting a San Francisco Shoplifter
Does inaction prevent or invite vigilantism?
Like me, many San Franciscans have thought about it.
With brazen shoplifting now as common as fog in the Outer Sunset district, what would any of us do if a theft happened right before our eyes?
Would we call for help?
Would we challenge the shoplifter?
Would we back off if the shoplifter challenged us?
Would we pull out our cell phones, take photos of the thief, and call the police?
Would we look the other way because it’s someone else’s problem?
Like many, I imagined and weighed the potential risks before deciding that there were too many variables to predict my behavior.
In the meantime, I would just have to surrender to the reality of merchandise lock-ups in my local drug store while shaking my head at the unintended consequence of a 2014 change in the state penal code that — with few exceptions — makes theft during regular business hours of goods valued $950 or less a mere misdemeanor.
Seeing an opportunity, shoplifters have since made drug stores a prime target. Indeed, there have been 750 petty or grand theft incidents at the 40 San Francisco Walgreens locations in the first five months of 2023 alone. And not all incidents were likely reported.
As much as I despised this latest example of civic decline, the scope of the crime wave was conditioning me to swallow my frustration and accept that petty theft was no longer an act of desperation or thrill-seeking, but a business of sorts; not a sin, as in my youth, but a sign of the times.
And then it happened.
While waiting in line at my neighborhood drug store, I noticed a woman pushing her own canvas-sided cart — about twice the size of child’s wagon — toward the back aisles. The store manager walked past her, did a double-take, and then headed to the checkout counter.
As I was finishing my transaction, I watched as the same woman — her cart now overflowing with paper goods and other miscellany — sauntered past the cash registers and out the front door.
